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Science & Tech
Explore the discoveries that reveal how the world works, alongside the technologies that extend, reshape, and sometimes challenge what’s possible.
In a gas cloud 26,000 light-years away, a 4-carbon sugar, erythrulose, has just been found. Here's what it means for life in the Milky Way.
Mars is very different than Earth: smaller, drier, colder, etc. But the biggest long-term challenge, for human colonies, is its low gravity.
Mathematics is our language for quantitatively describing reality, but it can also take us to worlds that never were. Physics needs more.
Astrophysicist Adam Frank used to think the consequences of rejecting science would play out on the individual level. He's since changed his mind.
Many think that intelligence can be outsourced to AI. Einstein wouldn't have used it. If he had, he never would have become Einstein.
Despite the brilliance of these cosmic beacons, only 1% of a core-collapse supernova's energy is observable. The other 99% is in neutrinos.
With nearly 400 black hole events from gravitational waves, we can begin to infer their origins. At least two different populations emerge.
The history of atoms in the Universe is our own history: without them, there would be no us. So how do we piece their cosmic story together?
For all we know, the cosmos could truly be infinite in scale. But the observable part of our Universe? It's finite, and its size is known.
The LIGO facilities in the U.S. are the most sensitive gravitational wave detectors in the world. Their future remains uncertain.
We used to think the Big Bang started it all. Then we realized that something else came before it, erasing everything that existed prior.
At "only" 25 meters in diameter, the Giant Magellan Telescope is the smallest of three current projects. That might make all the difference.
Using the newest large-scale structure data, a team of researchers announced a huge cosmic anisotropy in Nature. Too bad it's wrong.
Over 800,000 fireworks explode in under an hour in the world's largest fireworks shows. How do natural auroral displays compare in energy?
65 million years ago, a massive asteroid struck Earth, causing a mass extinction. Without advance warning, could anyone have spotted it?
With ~400 billion stars in the Milky Way and 6-20 trillion galaxies overall, that makes for a lot of stars. But not as many as you'd think.
The first one, NGC 1052-DF2, was mired in controversy. With four examples now, there only remains one possible escape. What does nature say?
Over 10 billion years in the past, an ultra-massive galaxy cluster lenses objects behind it. That has big implications for dark matter.
At 240 million light-years away, galaxy NGC 1277 hasn't formed new stars in over 10 billion years. Could it contain the first stars' ashes?
We live on Earth, orbiting the Sun, part of our Solar System, within the Milky Way. But what's our membership status on even larger scales?